New Look

I have changed how my site looks. I like this one much better =) I was getting annoyed that my pictures were wider than the space available in the old layout so I looked for a wider layout and found this pretty pink one! I hope you like.

This has been partly inspired by my new camera. I get money for Christmas from my parents. This year, I decided to treat myself to a new camera. There was nothing really wrong with the old one except that it was a bit old. It used a memory card that seems to be hard to buy now and when we went to Chicago last year, I kept having to go and get the card emptied onto CD so I could take more pictures.


I found a lovely little camera, the Fuji Z35. It had 10 megapixels and a bunch of settings and featured that I wanted like face recognition, anti shake and automatically resizing for blog posting. I ordered mine from Jessops. It never came :( On the fourth of June I FINALLY got my refund after too many phonecalls; broken promises of call backs and that the refund had been processed and having to give them my card details at least three different times. I had to threaten legal action in the end but nevermind.

I went into town to spend my refund this week. Naturally the camera I wanted is no longer widely available so instead I have a beautiful Fujifilm Finepix AV180. It is shiney!


It is so much lighter than my old one. It has a massive screen. It has 14 (FOURTEEN!) megapixels although I'm not sure why anyone other than a professional photographer would need that many. It also automatically sets itself. It knows if it needs a flash or the macro setting. It has about 15 settings for light/dark/fireworks/landscape/panoramic/baby shots (!) etc. It uses a standard SD card that is widely available. I already have two 2GB ones that I bought in January for the original lost camera.

I'll be having a play with it to test the settings out.

Flowers

For my birthday in May, I also received some flowers in the post from Phill's parents. I've never had flowers delivered before so it was very exciting!

They were most beautiful and lasted almost two weeks. I love lilies and roses and these were lovely ones.


I also received this planter from Anna and Joe. It's a giant teacup!

I have already planted some carrots in it. As it is very shallow, I was really pleased to find these little golf ball carrots. They have germinated and need thinning out. I will take some pictures of that soon.

Blogaversary!

Today is one whole year since I started my blog. Hoorah!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday and once again, I spent it in London with beautiful Anna. Phill has college on Thursdays so I went up with him in the morning. That meant getting up at stupid o clock and catching a train at 6.15am. Ouch!

I spent an hour or so sitting in the park at the bottom of the London Eye. I had a coffee and my knitting and the sun was shining. It was lovely!

Anna and I spent most of the day hunting the elephants that are currently "on parade" around the centre of London. They are raising awareness of the plight of the Indian Elephant and they have a petition here

And here are some of my pictures from the day. Click to embiggen.

Scumbags :(

This is what is left of the padlock on our shed. Someone has been in to our garden, cut off the lock and stolen Phill's bike. Just his bike! I'm actually quite impressed. Our garden is surrounded by 5 other gardens. The shed is flush against a wall that is at least 6 foot high and the other side of the wall is a garage. To get a bike out is actually quite an achievement!

When I went to get a new lock, I saw this and had to get it to make myself feel better!

Caturday

Some kitty pics for you:

Mani helping with the washing


Mani's new friend. He makes a racket. Phill has given him food. Ooops! We don't know where he lives as he doesn't have a collar but I don't think he's a stray as he is a fatty with lovely fur! Mum and Phill have named him Felix. This will need to change =)

Darn It!

Yesterday, I darned one of my socks. There was a hole appearing in the heel this was stopping me from wearing them as I was scared of wrecking my socks. They are so pretty and comfortable and I missed them. I thought I would practice that old adage of "a stitch in time saves 9" as the thought of darning an actual hole filled me with terror. It involves a sort of weaving and making new stitches where there are none. Doing it before the hole appears is easier as you just follow the path of the old stitches with the new thread.

Doesn't it look lovely!

The inside.

Iain

My friend Iain passed away last night. He was 33. He will be missed by a huge number of people.

(Picture stolen from Facebook, taken by Emerson)

Spring!

The first sign of spring... Daffs coming up on the road into town, hoorah!

A piss up in a brewery

A couple of weekends ago was Big Dave's birthday. I headed up to Gloucester for the weekend and the first order of play was a trip to Prescott Brewery in Cheltenham. Prescott is a micro brewery which, we learned, means that they only supply beer to Cheltenham. This is sad as their beer was well good!


They showed us all their fancy brewing equipment (including vats of hot and cold liquer fnar fnar). They let us loose on their beer which we managed to pour all over the floor and after the tour, we sat in their office for hours drinking and chatting.

It was a fab afternoon and they even had a go trying on my sock that I had just finished. So it seems Dave can organise a piss up in a brewery. I fully reccommend Prescott Ales if you happen to be in Cheltenham.

Pancake Day!

It's pancake day! And what could be better than pancakes than pancakes with bacon? Yum yum!

Cook your bacon. It needs to be crispy!

Chop half of it up into little bits.

Mix up your batter (I did 8oz flour, 1pt milk and 2 eggs as we want some for pud too)

Make the first, requisite crap pancake

Next one, put bacon in the middle of the pan and add a ladle of batter and spread it out

Make a couple and top with more bacon. Add ketchup or maple syrup and enjoy.